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Yi Jianlian and Reverse Prejudice

Apparently, Chinese basketball star Yi Jianlian is no longer wary of Caucasian communities – at least those in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On August 29, 2007, the Milwaukee Bucks managed to sign their first-round draft pick in the 2007 National Basketball Association draft but only after their owner, Herb Kohl, reportedly personally assured the youngster of certain special privileges – such as playing more than 20 minutes per game in his rookie season (though this has been denied by Bucks officials). A gifted athlete, passer and finisher, Yi overcame doubts regarding his true age and convinced the Milwaukee Bucks to make him an early lottery pick. This decision by the Bucks proved to be highly problematic on draft night when Yi and his Chinese team refused to confirm that he would, in fact, sign with the team that had drafted him.

Problematic, but not surprising. Even prior to the draft, Yi and his entourage had made noises about wanting to choose where he landed (translation: NOT some place like Milwaukee). Yi even refused to work out for the Bucks organization. Prior to Kohl’s last-minute heroics, it appeared as if the sixth overall pick would remain steadfast in his refusal to play in Milwaukee. Interestingly, while Yi himself personally showed little resistance to the idea, his “advocates” on both sides of the Pacific quickly concocted numerous professional and business reasons for his supposed disapproval of the team. In China, Chen Haitao, owner of Yi’s former Chinese basketball club, focused on Yi’s basketball development, claiming that Milwaukee had “too many tall players like Yi” and that the 2008 Chinese basketball team for the Beijing Olympics could suffer “[if] Yi goes to a team where he can’t keep up his level of play.” In North America, rumors circulated that Yi’s agent, Dan Fegan, wanted him in a major media market to increase his marketing potential and visibility. Maximixing the bucks, Fegan understands, means not being one.

But ostensible professional and business concerns now seem to have been pretextual. Or, in any event, they were soon eclipsed by the fact that, according to a myriad of sources, Yi Jianlian’s handlers didn’t want him residing in region without a significant Asian community. This concern was readily accepted by the national sports media. Most media outlets dutifully parroted Fegan’s argument that a larger Asian community would serve Yi’s marketability and integration into the United States far better than a relatively homogeneous white population could.

Although sports commentators might have taken Fegan to task, instead, they embraced his logic and conclusion. They made much of the fact that Asian-Americans numbered only 27,500 in the metro Milwaukee area and that, among those, the Chinese-American population stood at a mere 1,200. In fact, some news outlets such as MSNBC.com claimed that the city of Milwaukee’s image as a tolerant and foreigner-friendly city was at stake after the Bucks’ pick.

Thus, the message was clear – if Yi wanted to function as a businessman and as an accepted member of an American community, he would have to go to a place where Asians had already established institutional completeness and thus had economic and social clout at least somewhat independent of a Caucasian community which risked not fully accepting him due to race.

This argument made by Yi’s agents and unchallenged by most of the sports media may reveal a reverse prejudice that ought to be critically examined. At the very least, we should all be a little cautious about generalizing about one group’s expected reaction to a member of another identity group.

Let me be clear. I am not concerned with or referring to the highly politicized version of the term reverse prejudice (or its related cousin reverse discrimination) which is invoked by certain sectors of society to deny the necessity and logic behind programs such as affirmative action (which seeks to increase ethnically proportional representation in public life in order to rectify historically disadvantaged minority groups such as women and ethnic minorities). Rather, I am referring to prejudice in its broadest terms whereby “prejudice refers to a negative or hostile attitude toward another social group, usually racially defined.”

In the Yi case, a negative attitude toward whites is being expressed — that is, that whites as a group would not or could not accept Yi as fully as an Asian community would or could. But is that necessarily true? To begin with, there is little empirical evidence suggesting that ethnic communities would automatically support members of their own nationality or ethnic background in a sustained manner independent of their on-field success.

Since at least 1997, in a majority-white national population, African-American players comprise over two-thirds of the National Football League and NBA and a quick look at jersey sales in China reveals that Yao Ming, a genuine Chinese-born and bred NBA superstar, is only number six in overall sales – trailing five African-Americans. The assumption that ethnic communities will disproportionately support their own above all lacks conclusive empirical support.

Similarly, it is far from obvious that Asian players will be anything less than vaulted heroes among a team’s fans and followers – no matter the region. For example, Boston-area fans, Asian and non-Asian alike, have embraced Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima not due to their ethnicity but due to their exciting array of pitches and live arms. At least in the world of sports, racial biases are often dampened by primary desire to see athletic excellence. Racial-group associations, in other words, can be overshadowed by team associations. Uniforms often supplant other socially salient demarcations of group identity.

To be sure, prejudice that justifies and reinforces existing disparities wealth, power, privilege, and the like is often more harmful than a subordinate group’s prejudice against a superordinate group. Still, though, neither type of prejudice is without its costs. The problem with the power-sensitive definition of prejudice is that it trivializes the effects of stereotyping and prejudice in the other direction, such as outgroup homogeneity bias and group attribution error.

Outgroup homogeneity bias occurs when an individual sees members of his own group as more varied than members of other groups. Consequently, out-group members are differentiated from in-group members who, in turn, are also viewed as more interchangeable with other out-group members since they are perceived to be quite similar in attitudes and preferences. “They all look alike,” “they all think alike,” “they’re all alike,” are three common presumptions about members of groups outside our own. Outgroup homogeneity is especially potent when combined with group attribution error, whereby the actions of one individual can be equated with the inherent disposition of an entire group.

A post by Asian-American poster Koreana Hoosier at modelminority.com as the Yi situation unfolded illustrates the dynamics of both outgroup homogeneity bias and group attribution error when he equates the actions of a “white douchebag . . . from Wisconsin” and “anatomy professor [from] Wisconsin” with the racial attitudes of the entire “northern Midwest.” Koreana_Hoosier goes so far to say that “I hope another Chai Vang incident starts up again, since those white punks in cheese land are acting up against Asians in that area.” He commits outgroup homogeneity bias and group attribution error when he equates his experiences with two white Wisconsinites as being representative of the Caucasian community of the northern Midwest and concludes by hoping for an escalation of ethnic tension between two ethnic groups. This is how frighteningly easy a dangerous stereotype of an entire race is formed and due to the self-fulfilling nature of stereotypes, it can influence not only the attitudes but important actions between members of differing racial groups. For example, white physicians may believe the stereotype that blacks are less likely to comply with treatment and subsequently give them less care which, in turn, causes resentment among blacks towards white physicians which leads them to more easily disregard their medical advice.

In the end, if there no reluctance to make generalizations about any segment of the population, the problems of ethnic differentiation may be exacerbated. As noted in a previously highlighted excerpt in the Situationist, perhaps even some guilt or negative social reaction is in order:

Guilt plays a vital role in the regulation of social behaviour. On one hand, the punitive feeling of guilt may keep you from repeating the same transgressive behavior in the future which psychologists call “withdrawal motivation.” Conversely, some researchers view the function of guilt in a societal context, in that; it keeps people’s behavior in line with the moral standards of their community. This view emphasizes a more positive emotional experience and is associated with “approach motivation.”

Work by David M. Amadio, Patricia G. Devine and Eddie Harmon-Jones indicates that both approaches to viewing guilt are intertwined. As noted in their article, “guilt is initially associated with withdrawal motivation, which then transforms into approach-motivated behavior when an opportunity for reparation presents itself.” Guilt, then, may play some role in alleviating societal racial prejudices by creating both internal conflict and conflict with external social norms. If the sort of reverse prejudice evident in the Yi story is not called out at appropriate times, the positive behavior and attitudinal modification is unlikely to occur.

Luckily, attitudes can be changed as a function of experience as well as guilt and perhaps Yi’s grudging but final acceptance of playing Milwaukee as well as his enthusiastic reception by the community, Caucasian and Asian alike, can open up new dialogues between the Caucasian and Asian-American communities in the “northern Midwest.”

Regrettably, majority-led racism and prejudice does still exist in Middle America and even today sports commentators in Omaha, Nebraska can mock entire communities on-air by adopting a stereotypical Asian accent (“Mirraukee”) and call Chinese people “Chinamen” with little to no repercussion (as the video below illustrates).

In the end, I hope that all forms of prejudice will be more vigilantly challenged — from the implicit attitudes that go unnoticed to the explicit attitudes that go unchallenged.

12 Responses to “Yi Jianlian and Reverse Prejudice”

[…] Jason Chung wrote a fantastic post today entitled “Yi Jianlian and Reverse Prejudice.” Here is an excerpt from his piece: “Rather, I am referring to prejudice in its broadest terms whereby “prejudice refers to a negative or hostile attitude toward another social group, usually racially defined.” In the Yi case, a negative attitude toward whites is being . . . ” […]

rockysaid

your assumption that the large asian community is for yi’s marketability seems to be lacking. say for instance, that yi experiences culture shock, which many foreigners do. this would mean that he would not be able to compete at his highest level. what would assuage this? SIMPLE a place where he can feel at home. feeling at home, may not be feeling welcomed by an asian community (as you pointed out), but simply being near things that are familiar and that were taken for granted. anyways… your assumption might be correct to a certain extent, but does not portray the whole picture, which makes your argument,erroneous and little “prejudiced” in itself.

Butter Chickensaid

Rocky hits the nail on the head. I am pretty sure that there were worries that Yi would suffer an extreme culture shock if he were to go to a city without a large Chinese community. Also, I think it is fair to say that the Chinese community might embrace Yi to a greater extent than the non-Chinese community would. This is not necessary racism, but rather pride in the familiar. Is French support for Tony Parker racism? The premise to the article is not that supportable – you might want to pick a new battle.

Magic Handssaid

I don’t agree. Yi barely speaks English. Yi has lived in China all his life. When Yi arrived in Chicago there were hundreds of Chinese fans there to greet him. The fact that chinese community is more likely to embrace Yi doesn’t mean that he feels like the white community won’t accept him. It means that he would like to have a conservation in chinese with a person without an interpreter. Maybe get some home cooking once in awhile. Date a woman he can talk too. That has nothing to do with fan support or jersey sells or how much people cheer for him, or any other pseudo-intellectual crap you want to throw out there.

It was about his personal comfort. Now, I think that with maturity and after spending some time in Milwaukee, Yi may find he fits in comfortably there. But to say that Yi or his handlers were engaging in racism is untrue. Why do you think a lot of NBA players don’t like Utah? Its because of a comfort level, of being around your own people. Its just reality. Not my favorite reality, but reality nonetheless.

I’m not sure the fact “that whites as a group would not or could not accept Yi as fully as an Asian community would or could” was not the exact reason for Yi’s camps demands. I always interpreted as Yi would feel more comfortable living near a strong Asian community, not that whites wouldn’t accept Yi (if that makes sense). The former is about having a comfort zone to ease his transition, the latter is about projecting what other peoples’ attitudes would be.

Ez in Qatarsaid

I know this is about prejudice and racism, but what it all boils down to in the end is that we are having athletes that feel that they can “demand” the team that they are going to play for, ‘ala Eli Manning. The basic premise of the article is sound in that it would not matter where Yi went to play, whether it was a predominantly Asian Community or not. It all boils down to his ability to adapt. Can he or can’t he? Do you think he could thrive in California where there’s “Chinatown”? Where the expectations would be 10 times higher than Milwaukee?

The Bucks expect him to produce as a Player and perform Community Service as a Person. So… does that mean that he only wants to perform Community Service if the Community he is helping is primarily of Asian descent? It was a poor card to play in any regard. Play for the team that selects you. If you want to move on after the 3-year Rookie Contract is up, then you have that option.

This is a big step for Yi in his career and it already has been tainted with “demands” of a racial nature. Whether it was by him or his handlers is irrelevant.

Play for the Team that selects you and leave all the baggage behind. Take up your bags and go when you’ve fulfilled your contract. Don’t doubt the support that the fans (who buy tickets to see the games) will give, whether they are American (melting pot of the world) or not. Racism will always exist. Prejudice will always exist. It should NOT be used as a card in the Poker Game of a Business Transaction (unless it is to counteract some engative connotation).

Amitsaid

Its about time somebody wrote about the reverse discrimination in this whole ordeal. Yi should play where he was drafted…period. If the roles were reversed and this was a white player saying he didnt want to play for a predominately african american community, just imagine the uproar it would have caused. Its about time somebody stuck up for the white people in Wisconson (I’m asian)

I really enjoyed this article, and much of what I would comment on has already been posted by others. However, there is one thing I would like to mention concerning this line: “and a quick look at jersey sales in China reveals that Yao Ming, a genuine Chinese-born and bred NBA superstar, is only number six in overall sales – trailing five African-Americans.”

There is one big thing to consider regarding jersey sales, and that is how long has the player/jersey been around. There are other factors as well such as guards virtually always dominating the list, as with shoe sales, etc., but for this my focus is different.

For example:

Yao and his number 11 Houston Rockets jersey has been around since he was drafted in 2002.

Of those five African Americans ahead of Yao on this list:

1. Kobe Bryant – has been with the same team since drafted in 1996, however last season he changed his famous jersey #8, to #24. Thus, essentially everyone who had ever bought a Kobe Bryant #8 was “out of date, “old news”, and due for an update — a new jersey.
2. Allen Iverson – after spending his entire career with the Sixers, was traded last season to Denver. Again, everyone who had a Allen Iverson 76ers jersey was out of date and due for an update — an Allen Iverson Nuggets jersey. Not surprisingly his jersey sales sky-rocketed after the trade.
3. Tracy McGrady – is in an interesting situation where he is not only already a popular player, and a guard at that, but he also has the luxury (as far as jersey sales, all-star votes, and defensive attention [wink]) of playing on the same team as Yao, due to the great Asian fan-base due to Yao. However, in line with my overall point, while Yao has been in a Rockets jersey since 02, McGrady didn’t join the Rockets until 04. Not huge difference, I concede, but nonetheless a difference. People have essentially had two extra years to purchase Yao jerseys and after you already have a Yao jersey, would you be more likely to buy another replica or maybe a Tracy McGrady one this time?
4 & 5 Dwyane Wade LeBron James – Both drafted the year after Yao. Even less significant, however people have essentially had less time to purchase these two jerseys.

None of this is to completely discount your point, but to shed another light on it. Some are more significant than other such as Kobe’s number change and Iverson being traded, however they all certainly matter to some degree, and this isn’t even factoring in the fact that guards almost always dominate sales, or how in the season prior to these sales Dwyane Wade won the Finals MVP of a Championship team, etc.

Again, I really enjoyed your article and credit you for shining a different light on this situation. I just wanted to explore that jersey sales line a bit more.

DephlatorMousesaid

Look I find the whole “Revers Racism” thing a little offensive as a white man. I live in Portland Oregon. Ya on the whole its a largely white city, but the area I live in is very ethnically diverse. Asian, African, Hispanic, Indian, whatever you can name we’ve got it, and I like it that way. I find racism (especially open racism) to be extremely offensive no matter where it comes from, or whom its directed toward. Its really a shame, but I find that people of non-Caucasian decent (at least in the Portland Oregon area) are far more vocal about there prejudices not only against “white people” but also against other “minorities”.

All & all I just find it ridiculous that “minorities” can b!tch about white people being prejudice, and not take a look at their own behavior.